Cancer in Ringgold Co. Week 1: Introduction
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By Darrell Dodge
[This article is the first in a series examining cancer in Ringgold County. Today’s installment looks at data collection and general causes of cancer.]
Cancer rates in Iowa overall and rates specific to Ringgold County were the focus of an August 27 presentation in Mount Ayr as part of the 99 Counties Project from the Iowa Cancer Registry.
The project aims to present county-specific data and listen to community concerns, providing resources and recommendations for actions.
Leading the presentation was Dr. Mary Charlton, a professor from the University of Iowa’s College of Public Health and the director of the Iowa Cancer Registry. She also serves as president of the Iowa Cancer Consortium.
Charlton explained the goal of the project is to enhance community engagement and education around cancer prevention and control across all Iowa’s 99 counties, with a focus on urban and rural differences in cancer prevention, screening, and quality of care.
“The goal of this project is really to enhance community engagement and education around cancer prevention and control across all Iowa’s 99 counties,” she said. “It’s one thing to hear these state statistics, but it’s another thing to make it a little bit more relevant, to go around and make sure people know what the cancer experience is in their own county.”
The Iowa Cancer Registry collects information on 100% of people who get diagnosed with cancer who are residents of Iowa at the time of their diagnosis.
“It doesn’t matter where they go for care, even if you go all the way down to MD Anderson [Cancer Care Center] in Texas, we’ll find you,” Charlton said, “and we’ll follow those cancer cases for the rest of their lives. We collect hundreds of variables on every cancer case, and we assemble reports on new cancers, cancer deaths and survival.”
Prior to presenting specific statistics, Charlton reviewed the different risk factors related to cancer.
“As you all I’m sure are aware, cancer is complicated.,” she said. “There’s no one cause of cancer. It’s a combination of different genetic, lifestyle and environmental risk factors that change the function of our cells.”
Genetic factors include a family history of cancer and inherited mutations.
Lifestyle factors include tobacco and alcohol use, a diet lacking in fruits and vegetables, not being physically active, getting sunburns and using tanning beds.
Environmental factors include exposure to chemicals or radiation from previous cancer treatments.
Other factors that do not necessarily fit into one of those three categories include aging, viruses, and chronic inflammation.
Charlton advised against trying to tie all cancers in Iowa to agriculture.
“I do hear from a lot of people, it’s got to be the water, it’s got to be the pesticides,” she said, “but just nowhere is a longitudinal record of everywhere you lived, and every water source you drank from, and the things that you’re exposed from, and cancer develops over years to decades. So it’s really difficult.”
Not to discount the agricultural angle entirely, Charlton recommended continued research in that area.
“It’s not to say that we shouldn’t try,” she said, “and we definitely need to keep studying that and figure out a more quantifiable impact of environmental risk factors on cancer.”
According to Iowa Cancer Registry data, Iowa has the second highest rate of new cancers in the United States, with over half of Iowa’s counties having significantly higher incidence rates than the national average.
But what about cancer incidences in Ringgold County?
That will be the subject of the second installment of this series to appear in next week’s Record-News.
